Well I guess you were forced to spend them and get them into circulation weren't you?

True, though its a pretty aggravating strategy to inspire circulation...I missed my train as I went in search of a vendor who could give me real bills to use in the machine to get my dang ticket! If the machine spews $1 coins, they should also take them (otherwise, they are mainly circulating in my pocket).

Really the Feds need to just unilaterally get rid of the paper dollar and the public just needs to deal with it.

And the reason that doesn't happen is thanks to fellow Democrat and Portuguese Water Dog owner Ted Kennedy. Crane Paper is in Massachusetts, and Kennedy has been one of the loudest voices against halting the printing od one dollar buills. When Kennedy is gone, the US will probably get rid of their low denomination banknotes..

Growth for growth's sake is the ideology of the cancer cell. -- Edward Abbey

True, though its a pretty aggravating strategy to inspire circulation...I missed my train as I went in search of a vendor who could give me real bills to use in the machine to get my dang ticket! If the machine spews $1 coins, they should also take them (otherwise, they are mainly circulating in my pocket).

IMHO...

I doubt it has anything to do with trying to increase circulation, but rather it's simply transit agency incompetence. There are Muni stations here in San Francisco that require using all coins, yet there are no change machines. If you ask a station agent they tell you to go up to the street and go to a flower vendor or coffee shop.

And the reason that doesn't happen is thanks to fellow Democrat and Portuguese Water Dog owner Ted Kennedy. Crane Paper is in Massachusetts, and Kennedy has been one of the loudest voices against halting the printing od one dollar buills. When Kennedy is gone, the US will probably get rid of their low denomination banknotes..

To expand on that, during the mid-1990s the USA federal General Accounting Office estimated a total savings of $522M/year should the USA dump the $1 banknote for the coin. Adjusted for inflation, that figure is likely well over $1G/year now and all of that is to 'save' a couple of hundred jobs in total at Crane Paper (Dalton, MA), the ink maker and at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. That would make continued issuance of $1 banknotes one of the, if not the, very most inefficient government 'make work' programs ANYWHERE.

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Another point, coins are a penultimate recyclable - whenever they become unusable (wear out, get mangled or, as with the 1˘, become useless for commerce), they can be easily melted down and the metal used to make new coins. Waste 'strip' (the long coiled sheet of metal that coin blanks are stamped out of) is also melted and the metal used to make new 'strip'.

OTOH, worn-out banknotes are shredded and most of those shreddings are then landfilled (they cannot be recycled into new banknotes).

I have a gulty pleasure. I call ahead to the bank and exchange a $20 bill for Susan B Anthony coins. Then I spend them at gas stations stafed by 16 year olds that have never seen one before. The look on thier faces is precious.

I cashed a check at our credit union yesterday and asked for the singles in dollar coins. Nobody had them in their cash drawers! One of the tellers said she could get a roll if I'd like to "buy" the hole thing.

Chet, I like to do the same thing (but any store). They look at you with this "is this real" look/

"Whatever beer I'm drinking, is better than the one I'm not." DMLW
"Budweiser sells a product they reflectively insist on calling beer." John Oliver

I have a gulty pleasure. I call ahead to the bank and exchange a $20 bill for Susan B Anthony coins. Then I spend them at gas stations stafed by 16 year olds that have never seen one before. The look on thier faces is precious.